Bad link in story. Go to the Science Magazine homepage and search for "carbon nanotube smalley" and it will be like the 8th article down. Needs a signin, though...
This Article from Carnegie Mellon Talks about how lead based battery cars would be bad for the enviroment.
Ohh, man. I hear this too much. I've been participating on the Electric Vehicle Discussion List for over a year now. This topic comes up every now and then, usually in some editorial or article in the news. Lead-Acid batteries of starter battery size or greater are one of the most recycled manufactured products extant today. Forklift batteries are often rebuilt instead of recycled as well.
Lead-Acid batteries can also be fast-charged. The limiting factor is mostly the supply current! EV drag racers are dump-charging their small high power-density battery packs from large banks of more traditional "flooded" golf-cart style batteries, with currents in excess of 150A. They'd go higher but they don't have to. Discharge currents are up to 1400A in some cases. Quarter mile times are steadily dropping.
Of course, we'd like more energy density, or as we like to say it "miles per pound", out of the batteries. Nickel Cadmium batteries are currently a good solution, though they cost quite a bit more up front. Their longer cycle lifetimes do, however, make up for much of the difference in cost over the life of the batteries. SAFT is a good source for them.
These high power density batteries are interesting in that they will probably allow a lot more companies to make viable hybrid cars since the high charge/discharge currents will enable dumping many amps into an assist motor for rapid acceleration. The solid-state construction also lends itself to secreting the batteries all over the car, giving much more freedom to the styling designers.
As for immediate safety concerns, the spill from a wrecked lead-acid battery EV can be safely neutralized with baking soda and/or simple water dilution will eliminate most of the immediate danger. Gasoline is much worse!!!
Whew, that's enough for me today...
-cajun
Re:Oh, community, wherefore art thou?
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Technoromanticism
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A few weeks ago I went to Burning Man and I was astounded at the wonderful sense of community. You could not walk 50' without people inviting you in for food or drink or chat. I would *love* to live in such a place all the time (minus the desert). It is all the more perplexing considering a huge proportion of Burning Man attendies are from here. Why cannot the same sense of community be created here?
I've never been to Burning Man. Would love to go sometime, but unfortunately my ONE WEEK of not-scheduled-for-me time off is usually tasked to a 4x4 trip to hang with the LandCruiser community that is the TLCA. Cool peoples, the 'Cruiser types are, most of them anyway. Everybody shares spare parts, tools, fuel, food, etc. Difficult as all heck to avoid being offered food, drinks, etc. from other fellow 'Cruiserheads. All kinds of people, all kinds of ideas, all kinds of fun!
I'll make it to Burning Man some time, I just hope I don't have to wait too long...
-cajun
BTW, I live in a Northern suburb of Chicago where property values are INSANE and as such things are a bit odd. The coffee shop (CharBucks) closes at 6PM??????
Re:Oh, community, wherefore art thou?
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Where I live, it's every asshole with a boomcar playing some combination of shouted bad poetry and mercifully-deafening bass (at least I assume they're deaf. It would be a mercy. The levels of distortion and the rattle and buzz of every object not rubber-mounted in the car pretty much destroy any musical value the stuff might have.)
Well, I've heard that stuff, too. And I always think: "Get some Dynamat, dammit!!!" as well.
However, if these individuals thought they were a PART of a real COMMUNITY they might actually CARE about other people. And they might meet someone who knows something about acoustics and vibration and whatnot who can set them up so their car sounds a lot sweeter without buzzing and shaking and distorting all over the place, plus the common courtesy to turn it down at night, at stoplights, etc.
I used to blare my stereo as loud as I could, now I turn it down at stoplights because I realized that I didn't like it when others blared at lights, so I shouldn't either.
I still think a more developed community would help solve a lot of these sorts of antisocial problems...
Besides, what I meant about cool music coming out of a door isn't a loud blare, it's enough to notice from the sidewalk if you were walking by. Listening carefully, you'd say "Hey, that sounds cool, I wonder what it is?" and walk up and ask. In college I could do that all the time, and met a lot of cool people that way.
-cajun
Re:Oh, community, wherefore art thou?
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Technoromanticism
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are you kidding, the only reason that your online communities are so accepting is because ultimately everyone is secluded and has their own privacy.....they are only intellectually accepting. There is no physical acceptance in a virtual community and i doubt that a community like that would be willing to be as "free" physically as they are intellectually.
Well, I hope we can find a way around that, or at least teach tolerance to future generations so that people don't have to be physically isolated to be intellectually free with each other. Intellectual freedom breeds physical freedom, methinks. Slow process, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere, right?
Besides, one of the online communities I was a part of in the past (haven't had much contact with it for the past year or so... life changes things sometimes...) I do know a lot of the members of in person, and they are every bit as accepting in the real world as they are on the 'Net. Unfortunately, they are scattered about the country, so it's not like I can just pop down the block and say Hi...
-cajun
Oh, community, wherefore art thou?
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Lessee here... Nice bit of work there, wish I had time to order and read the book before posting, but I don't.
The "global village" isn't here yet, as another poster has mentioned. And, yes, the author of the book is right in that the "ideals" of the Internet providing us with such global connectivity is really just the same Enlightenment ideas being attributed to new sources.
I for one would like a tighter community. One very much like a university dorm, but with better sound insulation on the walls (VERY important...;-) and private bathrooms/kitchens and all the comforts of home. Sounds very much unlike a dorm, but it's not the PHYSICAL implementation that I want to be similar.
It's the SOCIAL one.
Maybe it's just where I live, but I sure don't see anyone leaving a door open with cool music coming out, inviting random passersby to stick their head in and knock and see if anyone wants to chat or something. And I am SURE that if I tried to just walk up to random houses and/or apartments around where I live and knock and try just chatting with people I'd get wierd looks and maybe a visit from the police...
Why are we so interested in cocooning ourselves away from everyone else? The fragmentation it produces is is why we all love our Internet connections so much, it is a SUBSTITUTE for the physical community that is so obviously lacking in the "real world".
Or, at least, that is the typical "geek stereotype" reason, I guess.
We've lost much more than we've gained with rampant consumerism and an ad-driven popular culture. In exchange for boatloads of shiny trinkets and a feeling of "security" behind the gates of our suburbs and the wheels of our Expeditions we've given up just about everything I can define as "community".
If things are different where you live, please describe it. I might want to move there!!!!
What good is prosperity if you can't enjoy it? A more "open" community model would alleviate quite a lot of alienation, lonliness and abject boredom, methinks...
And the cooperation such communities would engender would bring a higher standard of living to everyone involved.
To get rid of the "tragedy of the commons" you need to keep the community tight-knit enough that everybody knows what's going on. This necessarily involves smallish groups, like a few blocks or somesuch, but these block-level groups can work together in larger groups without losing the advantages that the small block group size affords in dealing with keeping common areas in good shape.
I hope to find some sort of community someday in the real world that is as accepting and open as some of the online ones I am a part of...
No, I am not making a "spy" joke. A very close friend of mine has a tiny little import/export business of her own to/from some isolated parts of the former Soviet empire. Socks, sweaters, gum, candy that sort of thing. Her boyfriend has been in the business for a few years, and travels back and forth between the US and Russia quite often. Perhaps you could poke around the local Russian immigrant enclaves and find some Russian-branded products and work your way up the distribution network until you find the entrepeneur running the thing. He or she would probably be willing to strike a deal to hand-carry your goods to a trusted courier in-country at the other end, and he/she also knows how to get through customs. Another couple I know, retired from running *the* biggest (legal/non-govt't) import/export business in the early to mid 80's brought back thousands of dollars worth of jeweled boxes and whatnot from Russia without problems. The secret? Put all the clothing, underwear, etc. into one suitcase and all the valuables in the other and make sure they get the "clothes" one first. Helps if there's some lingerie in there, embarrasses the customs guy and they don't want to open the other one...
This is probably going to be left unmoderated at the bottom of the pile, but I figured it is worth letting fly anyway.
I have a college education, and I consider myself darn lucky that my father thought it best to provide me with it. I'll make that clear: I didn't pay for the education myself. Fortunately, I also found it worth my while to do a co-op (kind of a long internship, stretches a 4-year program into 5) so I would get some experience while I was at this learning thing.
I found college to be one of the best times I've had! At no other point in time will I be so surrounded by such a group of people my age, with the informalities of Dorm Life and the soft landings provided by the School Social Bubble. Sure, it is a microcosm unto itself, and doesn't lend itself too much to comparisons about what it is like in "the real world". That's kind of the point. That whole "walk before you run" thing has merit, even in such things as socializing and dealing with other people. College is great for learning that stuff. If you royally screw up, next year there will be quite a few people who never knew you before and you can effectively try again. Heck, even moving to another Dorm will give you that opportunity!
Yes I'm saying a lot about Dorms here. If you go to school in the "normal" age range, please spend at least a year or two in the dorms. It will most likely be the only time in your life you will ever be able to just walk down the hall, find someone's door open with cool music coming out, knock, walk in and start chatting. Made a lot of friends that way, miss that way of life sometimes, too.
I've been out in the "Real World" now for over 2 years. Jobs are NOT as flexible as classes as far as working a social life around them. Especially when you have a long commute.:P You can get away with a lot more mistakes in school than at work, too. Both social AND "work-related". It's nice to learn the ups and downs in a semi-protected environment.
As for the technical side of things, well, I figure college classes are more about "learning how to learn" than trying to memorize how to do things. Personally, I learned how to use resources really well, lots of constants, tables, etc, to look up in Engineering. (I've a BSME)
I guess it's time to summarize. Go to college, it's much more than just learning how to make a buck. My Dad wishes he'd spent more time goofing off and taking "fun" classes than just taking classes he could "make a buck" off of. That's partly why he sent me to school. Can't afford it? BS! One of my closest friends in school worked her way through. She had loans, sure, but she worked hard and had a 4.0 GPA last time I talked to her about it. I think she kept it through graduation, not sure. She also partied pretty darn hard!:-) If you are 18 or over and your parents don't claim you as a dependant, you are financially your own person. That should get you at least SOME financial aid. Work for the food service and you get to eat free. Lots of stuff like that available.
It's also nice to have that piece of paper called a Diploma if only because a lot of HR departments won't even look at you if you don't have one. Call it bias, but it's there, and you'll get a lot more out of college than just that piece of paper.
*sigh* It is true that college is not for everyone, but I'd say give it a try. If you don't like it, go to work for a few years and try it again.
It contains codewords, ciphers and/or other text messages that the Prez tells the guys who DO have the buttons that it is time for THEM to open THEIR safes and pull out THEIR codes and turn their keys, telling the computers to tell the missles to launch...
No single button, a chain of command with people in it.
That said, mechanisms and people are both fallible.
I for one hope we never have to test just how fallible they are, one way or another it would be a VERY BAD DAY.
Although offtopic, I thought I'd point something out here.
This was a mis-quotation of Khruschev. This site:"We Will Bury You" tells a bit about the incident. I quote here a small portion:
"Living in a world strewn with the wreckage of the Soviet empire, it is hard
for most people to realize that there was a time when the Soviet economy,
far from being a byword for the failure of socialism, was one of the wonders
of the world--that when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the U.N. podium and
declared, "We will bury you," it was an economic rather than a military
boast. It is therefore a shock to browse through, say, issues of Foreign
Affairs from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s and discover that at
least one article a year dealt with the implications of growing Soviet
industrial might."
Now, Khrushcev didn't actually say "We will bury you". What he said has been
subsequently translated as "We will be at your burial", meaning roughly that
communism would outlive capitalism. And he said it in Poland in 1956, not at
the United Nations in 1959. The shoe pounding incident was entirely
unrelated to the misquote in question, but like the misquote was eagerly
interpreted as a gesture of aggression.
You're still talking about slanted, biased media disinformation.
I'm not.
If we established a regularly scheduled TV show/radio show/newspaper insert/(insert media item here) that gave true equal time to every registered entrant, AND TOLD PEOPLE ABOUT IT, I think they would appreciate a single-source for their info.
I'm not talking "news stories" here, I'm talking "position stories" by the parties themselves. In the case of TV and radio, each registered candidate gets up at a podium in front of a blue screen (where on TV their party name/logo/whatever will show) and reads a prepared speech. No fancy editing, no fancy pictures, no special effects, just a person talking to the camera/microphone. In the newspapers or other text-based media the prepared speech would be printed verbatim.
No slant, no bias, no spin other than what the party/candidate puts in themselves. If a candidate wants to spend his or her five minutes spouting off at the others, fine, he or she will look silly.
The important thing is that, despite all the other paid ads, soundbites, etc. out there people will know that these "equal access hours" will be the place to get all the info in one go. If you miss it, pick up the newspaper or hit the library on the way home. Simple, really, and difficult to abuse since only registered entrants my participate, etc.
I think it would even be okay to have these position papers tacked up in the voting areas, so that people can scan the info one last time before they go in and pull a lever. Since they aren't paid ads and everyone on the ballot has the same amount of space, it should be fine.
Now, I'm a bit cynical, too, in that I don't want "gibbering idiots" determining how I live my life, but I feel very strongly that everyone who is going to be affected by the decision get a chance to influence it.
By making a place where everyone on the ballot gets equal space/time/print/volume/surroundings/editing/whate ver we will supplant the "spam-like news digests by profit-motivated media outlets" that you describe, thereby informing the poorly informed.
Maybe if people are more informed the "representative" bit will come back...
Take a step back and read what you posted. Take a think. A long think.
You say that you don't want a more democratic government because the MEDIA tells everyone what to do? All of your arguments take aim at how the information is fed to the people, and you feel that to make things work better we should reduce the number of people eligible to vote. (Well, you didn't say that exactly but it seems implied.)
What we need to do is to reform the way campaign and issue information is disseminated to the public, so that the public IS informed and CAN make intelligent decisions.
The much-maligned Joe Sixpack may not be a rocket scientist, but he isn't stupid, either.
I'd like to see:
*Party platforms, including their positions on all issues, posted in public places (libraries/schools/etc.) and indexed in such a way that anyone can get to the issues that interest them. Cross-reference them as well so that related issues are tied together.
*Put a "Politics" section in the major newspapers that will print up a platform proposal by ANYBODY who registers to run for a political position. Nobody gets excluded, set a uniform length, etc. That way, no matter how many high-priced full-page ads the major candidates put out everyone who's running has a spot in the "Politics" section and people will gradually get used to the idea that this section is a better place to get info than PAID ADS. Of course, this brings up the issue of who pays for all this, but perhaps there could be an "advertizing tax" or somesuch whereby the candidates that buy full-page ads, etc. subsidize the printing costs for the little guys. Or something. I'm no economist!:-)
*TV and Radio ads need some serious reform. We almost never see ads for anyone other than the Big Two. In fact, other than Perot, I can't remember a single political ad (for pres, anyway) that had anyone other than the Big Two in them. Maybe the Public Access channels should have a "Politics" show or somesuch along the lines of the position papers in the Libraries, newspapers, etc.? If soundbites/viewbites rule the minds of the populace, then we need to figure out a way that everyone running gets heard. If every party got 5 minutes for a "position speech" in a special "Politics Hour" or somesuch, with periodic reminders that "all this and more at your local library/school/wherever available to copy and take home to peruse at your leisure". Again, people will gradually learn that they get better information from these sources than from PAID ADS.
I agree that technology can help here, but it is a lot lower tech than people on/. are used to talking about. I'm talking printing presses, copy machines, bulletin boards (the cork kind!:-), etc. If you make a "standard location" where everyone running drops off an info packet, and make it widely known that the info is available there, people will be more likely to use it. Wouldn't take much more to set up local 800 numbers with "dial a party" info databases. And of course throw it all on the Net, too, but again make a centralized, recognized Politics Site where ALL parties running place their stuff.
If you don't like uneducated voters "polluting the system", EDUCATE THEM, don't cut them out of the loop entirely!
The LN2 car is an interesting one. Last time I read about it, I liked the idea. You make a vacuum-insulated tank and cap it at only a few psi, just enough to keep it from going vacuum on you on transition from hot day to cold day. The LN2 boils off slowly over a period of days to weeks, it is a "use it or lose it" scenario.
The breakthrough is in the heat-exchanger: it is a "frost-resistant" device in that it still works pretty well when iced over, unlike most air conditioner evaporators...:-) The LN2 is fed through the exchanger to a pressure regulator to the "engine" where it is allowed to expand and propel the vehicle. No compressor, cryogenics, etc. onboard at all, just the LN2 in a vacuum dewar, the exchanger/evaporator and the "engine". IT is an odd sort of heat engine, but it is still a heat engine in that it uses the "low grade" ambient heat in the air passing across the heat exchanger to power the phase change from liquid to gas. THe hotter it is out, the better it runs, per regular heat engine theory. Probably also want to try and keep the engine block warm, too, to help in the expansion there. Nifty use of ambient heat, for sure!
Sure it takes a fair amount of energy to make the LN2, but it generates other liquid gases during production that can be sold to recoup some of the energy cost.
Transport in bulk works better than the smaller tanks in that the much higher liquid volume makes it resist temp change a bit better. If it scales up, the price for the LN2 will come down. It isn't too bad right now, though, 'cause lots of industries use it.
Pretty safe in a crash, too. The tank will be located similarly to a regular gas tank or a LPG tank on a vehicle: OUTSIDE the passenger compartment. Current vehicle regulations require this, as well as venting of the tank enclosure space to the atmosphere. There would likely be a "popoff valve" similar to those used in LPG cars in case of excess pressure build up (clogged vent or whatever). One of the "cool" things about it would be that in a crash it is very likely to make the OTHER presumably ICE-powered car cool off, thus greatly limiting the chance of a fire from the gasoline. You'd have a nifty big cloud form, but the LN2 would boil off pretty darn quick. Might get frostbite if you grabbed the twisted metal around where the tank was, but it is otherwise unlikely to harm you.
If I can get to the URL I'll read more about it...
Hmm. Perhaps someone should develop an "anonymous tip" model for companies to use that allows "double blind" notification of potential problems. Along with training to attempt to minimize abuse of the system, this could help the small-time whistleblower keep from getting fired.
Currently, though IANAL, IIRC there are laws already on the books that make it illegal to fire someone for being a whistleblower. There are certainly some laws regarding OSHA standards, according the the training I just recieved. Unfortunately, this does nothing to help the guy who, despite successfully suing to get his job back, now has to work in a negative environment, as will often happen in those companies that have enough to hide to want to fire whistleblowers.
Heck, I've been warned not to spread around our OSHA violations at work...
Good point. Hmm, wonder if it would be possible to make a hydrogen molecule with one hydrogen atom and one anti-hydrogen atom... Talk about an unstable molecule!!!!
BTW, nice to see a first post that is actually informative...:-)
-cajun
Lead free solder is available, and is not unproven. Kester Solder sells a number of formulations and fluxes to make them work. They do need a hotter soldering iron temperature, which may lead to issues with chips/components/boards getting too hot, but this is surmountable. The sticking point right now is that "Everyone still uses lead solder" and "but it's harder to use" etc. etc. Basically whining and corporate inertia. If I had any sort of control at all over how we do stuff here, I'd spec lead-free solder for everything we make. We do use it for some apps, specifically higher temperature apps, but the bulk is still lead-based 'cause it doesn't make the ladies that hand-solder everything we make (except for the SMT stuff) complain...
BTW, all solder used for plumbing with copper pipes has been lead free for quite a few years. 'Course, soldering with a blowtorch isn't as finicky as a tiny soldering iron...:-)
-cajun
I've been interested in alternative fuels and electric vehicles for many years, due mainly to my hobby of working on older very fuel-inefficient vehicles. As an enthusiast, I want to have my cake and eat it too. The "magic bullet" solution isn't here quite yet for sale at the dealership but that doesn't mean you can't do a homegrown effort.
I'm a member of the Electric Vehicles Mailing List see: EVDL Instructions to join or to browse the archives.
A group of us are trying to design an electric car along the "Open Source" idea, basically a set of plans from which anyone can build or base a design of their own on for an electric car.
Main problem at this point is too many people to please.
An electric vehicle conversion can be made to go 120 miles on a charge using ordinary golf-cart style lead-acid batteries, top speed around 75mph or more and that is a mixed city/highway range, not an optimal low-speed range. See it here: Red Beastie
Someone mentioned methanol pumps in Brazil. Sorry, they use Ethanol there as a highly gov't subsidized alternative fuel made from sugar crops there. Ethanol has been shown to use more energy in its creation than you can get back from it, so it's not a large-scale viable fuel for environmental reasons.
Methanol, on the other hand, can be made from virtually any biomass source, but the preferred gasification/reformation method "likes" woody, dry herbacious feedstock like wood scrap and the much-touted industrial hemp.
Some approximate figures:
One can get 10-20 dry tons of biomass per acre of land using prairie grass, trees and/or industrial hemp.
From 1 dry ton of biomass, 100-150 gallons of Methanol can be produced.
That's roughly 1,000-3,000 gallons of methanol per acre per growing season. At 10mpg that's 25,000 miles on 2.5 acres average.
Fuel cells will get roughly 100-150mpg equivalent, so that's 250,000 miles per 2.5 acres average.
Or, a quarter acre can drive you 25,000 miles per year. You can provide most of the fuel you need to drive every year by mowing your lawn!
For electric cars using batteries, the concern everyone seems to have is "Where do I charge?"
You can "plug in" anywhere you can get electricity and permission to use it. The only time you need a special plug or custom plug is when you buy the OEM EV's with their proprietary big-$$$ inductive chargers or when you want to "fast charge" to fill your pack in an hour or so.
I could drive an electric vehicle if I had a garage or a dedicated parking space where I could erect a plug. That's the current drawback: only homeowners or those who have landlords/condo associations that will let them plug in can really have them. Fits well, though, because such people generally have 2 cars anyway one of which usually shuttles back and forth to work with only one person inside most of the time. Keep the gas minivan for hauling the fam around, use an electric for the commute to work.
Ford projects methanol hybrids to be available in 2003 or so. This is in line with the current state of the art in fuel cells and on-board reformers. Methanol can be pumped just like gasoline, so infrastructure is a matter of cleaning out a gasoline storage tank, replacing all the O-rings with methanol-tolerant versions, and changing the price and label on the pump.
By the way, the Prius is just a hybrid-electric Echo sedan. The price difference will take 230,000 miles to pay off at $3 a gallon for gasoline.:-P
You can buy CNG trucks from Chevy and Ford, you just have to order it from the factory.
Propane is widely available, and it doesn't cost much to switch. Check the cost of the fuel and your miles-per-year to see if it is viable.
Cheapest solution today for commuting: Used Diesel VW Rabbit and similar vehicles from the mid-80's. Sub-$2,000 cost for the vehicle, 45mpg, cheap fuel at truckstops. New cars? Volkswagon TDI. 45+mpg.
Fuel Cells are coming, and they will rid commuter cars of those pesky Carnot heat engines. Meanwhile, us Enthusiasts (AKA: Gearheads, Engineheads, Petrolheads, GreaseMonkeys, Hotrodders, etc.) can use the methanol in a conventional heat engine and take advantage of it's very high octane to enjoy very high performance. Remember: Formula 1 engines run on methanol, and turbocharged versions pushed almost 1,000hp out of their tiny engines...:-)
"Actually, MS can introduce all the tags they want, and it's up to web developers to NOT USE THEM. If these new tags become heavily utilized on the web, then we have web designers to blame, and not Microsoft. Further, it would actually show that there's a demand for that functionality, and that W3C is moving too slow to be useful."
It goes a little higher than that: These web designers have bosses.
Those bosses have bosses.
You go up far enough and in most companies you end up hitting the ubiquitous "Pointy-Haired Boss" who says something like: "Dammit! I want it to do that new flashy thing I saw in my (insert name of trade magazine written for and by "Pointy-Haired Boss" types) yesterday!"
When faced with this sort of "do it or we'll find someone else to" fiat it's no wonder IE can deadlock the browser market...
"For example, make karma invisible to the user. Make scores invisible to those lacking moderator points."
Uhh, no. Problem: Scores are very useful to see when you want to "skim" the comments for what is likely "good stuff" so hiding them isn't cool. Karma, on the other hand, I suppose we could leave that a mystery. Not sure about that one, though. Mine sure hasn't gone up much...
Hey, this could be really cool! Re-enable the "Turbo" switch that is still on most available PC cases. "For when you absolutely, positively, must have that spreadsheet crunched in 200milliseconds!":-) -cajun
Figured I'd post a bit of an extension to the above argument. Recently read a book called "Natural Capitalism" that I heard about here on/. in some older article that I won't bother looking up. (so I'm lazy.:-P)
Anyways, what barawn is talking about is pretty much how it is for anything in a capitalist system. Not that the capitalist system is bad, it is just that it relies on using price as the defacto indicator of cost/value.
Unfortunately, current prices do not accurately reflect the "true" cost/value of many things. Space research, or any pure research for that matter, is a prime example.
Put another way, such things are underfunded because everyone is making rational, correct decisions based on the available information (price, some vague promises about possible future benefit most likely not within their lifetimes) for their financial and life situation. Such individualy sane, rational decisions can unfortunately aggregate to insane, irrational results. Like rainforest de-forestation and adding tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Nobody wants to do that, it just happens because there's no tag on that gallon of gas or that banana or whatever that says "This caused X pounds of CO2 to enter the atmosphere, polluted X gallons of water, caused the loss of X cubic yards of topsoil, etc." and even if it was there nobody knows the "price" of such things or the "value" of the natural resources that are being consumed.
Of course, these arguments can logically be extended to include the Open Source movements as well as all these "information wants to be free" things and patent skirmishes et al. If, say, the price tag on a MicroSoft product included the bit about "Crashes in this product will cause you lost revenue." and had a dollar amount, then MicroSoft would rather quickly clean up their code as the public said "it's not worth the price!" or at least the price of said products would go way down...:-)
That said, I have an interesting question: How much is a reliable, easy-to use, fast OS that has tons of good programs available for it worth to the average user? The current price does NOT reflect the "real pure free market price" for such a product because said "real pure free market price" assumes that the user has all the information needed to base his/her/its decision on. I think we can all agree on that one, with the exception of the guru's out there...:-)
I guess I'd just like to see real "truth in advertising" like that ad from that movie that said "Volvo. They're boxy but good." -cajun
Anybody here like the Sandman graphic novel series by Niel Gaiman?
It won the World Fantasy Award at some point, after which the rules for that award were changed to prohibit any future "comic books" from ever winning the award again.
Re:Jon, corporations are not the danger
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At The Crossroads
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the real problem... is the fact that the laws themselves do not respect rights.
...
- Decency laws, euthanasia laws and forced self-safety laws ignore the right of self ownership.
- Zoning rules, antitrust, workplace regulations and most taxes or tariffs ignore the right of private property.
These two "rights" are mutually incompatible. "workplace regulations" for example actually help protect"the right of self ownership."
Most, if not all, laws were passed to protect private property from the disposessed. How was that private property gained in the first place? In the case of the US, it was taken from the Native Americans by first the colonists and then the US gov't. In the case of much of Britain the common areas were taken over by the rich and powerful, transforming the poor, free peasants who had the right to work land for their own gain into poor "free" peasants who were forced to work land for the gain of the landowners.
Some of y'all can rant about it being Katz just self-aggrandizing, but look at mainstream media. Why is any story POSTed? To be read! Ulterior motives vary, but I think mainly people write these stories because they feel the issue is important enough to publish their opinion on the subject, and they realize that while many will disagree, at least it should stimulate the public discussion that could lead to a good solution to any "problem" with the issue.
In the specific case of the "freedom" on the Internet, we are certainly facing a problem and many attacks from gov'ts and corp's who fear the implications of unrestricted information flow.
Existing "meatspace" laws only come up short because of the current difficulty inherent in enforcing them when the medium used to violate them is as distributed, twisted and mutable as the Internet's vast web of connections. The ultimate control point, of course, would be the major Telcos. They own the wires, fibers, etc, that the Internet's information exchanges travel on. Fortunately, the gov't hasn't decided to attack that point yet, probably because it would still be extraordinarily difficult to efficiently block and trace back "prohibited" packets, especially if they are encrypted.
We educated users of the Internet care about this because we use the 'net almost every day, and have come to rely upon it for much of our information gathering and sharing. It is also an important medium for disseminating ones opinions to a very large possible audience. As such, it is of course an important tool for Free Speech.
It comes back down to the existing laws and the country that spawned them, however. The Internet does have physical components, and the access points to it have physical locations, as do the users. Said physical locations are bound by the laws in that location. In countries where Speech is (mostly) Protected, like here in the US, we can expect that there will be little if any direct control over the "data conduits" and their connections to sites outside of the US. (I'm leaving IP law aside for the moment...) In countries where Speech does not have similar Protection, we can expect that there will at least be a vigorous attempt to control the "data conduits" in a similar fashion to other media. As another poster mentioned, a gov't can do considerable damage before it realises that it's goals are unattainable. However, they will not be resisted overmuch as long as the public that supported the creation of the laws still supports their enforcement. That this is difficult is not an issue to the majority, witness the current War On Drugs in the US...
Corporations are an "enemy" in this issue because they desire to protect their profits. That is their sole function, to create and protect their sources of profit. At least this is the case under current Capitolistic economic systems. If they see a threat to their profits, they will do everything in their power to neutralize that threat. This includes using their economic power to lobby for the passage and/or enforcement of laws against the rest of the public. Whether this is right or wrong is up to the individuals involved to decide, but until there is enough popular support for a change in the current model nothing significant will happen.
Perhaps the best way to ensure the continued expansion of communication and ease of information sharing would be to maximise the number of people who have access to the Internet. If everyone was on the Internet and came to value it as a vital tool for sharing information, opinions, etc. about all topics, including dissenting political ideas, revolutionary ideas, etc. then any attempt to shut off this medium would lead to a huge public outcry against such an attempt.
As it is, we do not have the support of the majority, because the majority do not have Internet access and therefore only have the information about it supplied by the predominant media forms of newspapers, radio, television and schools. And those of us who know realize that such sources are far from being unbiased, especially to those who have to work so hard to make ends meet they don't have time for anything more than the TV news soundbites they catch on the TV during meals and/or the radio soundbites they hear. Until we get the masses online, we will not have their support, and they will continue to base their opinions on the opinions of the popular media.
This is why it is so important to fight "filtering systems" in schools, libraries, and other public access locations, or at least to stimulate vigorous wide-scale public discussion about it, in order to get our point across that maximal access to information is VERY IMPORTANT to allow our children to develop into adults capable of dealing rationally with all sorts of information that they will be exposed to in their lives.
Perhaps an acceptable idea would be to get the schools to use Linux or Unix based operating systems and text-only browsers. Not only would they learn more about how the computers they use operate, but it should satisfy 95% of the parents who object to certain kinds of content on the Internet.
Of course, there are those who beleive that the role of parents and schools is to mold and socialize their kids to want to act the way we want them to, to want the same things we want, to value things the same way we do, etc. rather than teaching them how to decide such things for themselves...
If you want to preserve the access rights for "us techies", you needn't worry. It is relatively easy to get a "codeless technician class" Amateur Radio liscense, and for the motivated the higher class liscenses should be easy as well. Packet radio can and is done, and it is legal. Advances in error-detection and correction will need to be made because of the high amount of noise and the spurious contact quality from time to time. Simple encryption would defeat most attempts to "listen in". Basically a huge wireless LAN. One could also use various "line of sight" connection techniques, including lasers, microwaves, directional antennas, etc. For the truly paranoid, mobile "burst" transmitters. Transmission would be less instantaneous, but for mostly text-based information it could be very useful. Server in a van with a reciever and a transmitter. When the buffer is full, burst transmit. Coded-in callkeys to identify the intended reciever. All sorts of ideas, and all hard to track down. Especially the recievers.
You can be as free as you want to be, but TANSTAAFL...
Slashdot Mirror
Bad link in story. Go to the Science Magazine homepage and search for "carbon nanotube smalley" and it will be like the 8th article down. Needs a signin, though...
-cajun
clinko writes:
This Article from Carnegie Mellon Talks about how lead based battery cars would be bad for the enviroment.
Ohh, man. I hear this too much. I've been participating on the Electric Vehicle Discussion List for over a year now. This topic comes up every now and then, usually in some editorial or article in the news. Lead-Acid batteries of starter battery size or greater are one of the most recycled manufactured products extant today. Forklift batteries are often rebuilt instead of recycled as well.
Lead-Acid batteries can also be fast-charged. The limiting factor is mostly the supply current! EV drag racers are dump-charging their small high power-density battery packs from large banks of more traditional "flooded" golf-cart style batteries, with currents in excess of 150A. They'd go higher but they don't have to. Discharge currents are up to 1400A in some cases. Quarter mile times are steadily dropping.
Of course, we'd like more energy density, or as we like to say it "miles per pound", out of the batteries. Nickel Cadmium batteries are currently a good solution, though they cost quite a bit more up front. Their longer cycle lifetimes do, however, make up for much of the difference in cost over the life of the batteries. SAFT is a good source for them.
These high power density batteries are interesting in that they will probably allow a lot more companies to make viable hybrid cars since the high charge/discharge currents will enable dumping many amps into an assist motor for rapid acceleration. The solid-state construction also lends itself to secreting the batteries all over the car, giving much more freedom to the styling designers.
As for immediate safety concerns, the spill from a wrecked lead-acid battery EV can be safely neutralized with baking soda and/or simple water dilution will eliminate most of the immediate danger. Gasoline is much worse!!!
Whew, that's enough for me today...
-cajun
A few weeks ago I went to Burning Man and I was astounded at the wonderful sense of community. You could not walk 50' without people inviting you in for food or drink or chat. I would *love* to live in such a place all the time (minus the desert). It is all the more perplexing considering a huge proportion of Burning Man attendies are from here. Why cannot the same sense of community be created here?
I've never been to Burning Man. Would love to go sometime, but unfortunately my ONE WEEK of not-scheduled-for-me time off is usually tasked to a 4x4 trip to hang with the LandCruiser community that is the TLCA. Cool peoples, the 'Cruiser types are, most of them anyway. Everybody shares spare parts, tools, fuel, food, etc. Difficult as all heck to avoid being offered food, drinks, etc. from other fellow 'Cruiserheads. All kinds of people, all kinds of ideas, all kinds of fun!
I'll make it to Burning Man some time, I just hope I don't have to wait too long...
-cajun
BTW, I live in a Northern suburb of Chicago where property values are INSANE and as such things are a bit odd. The coffee shop (CharBucks) closes at 6PM??????
Where I live, it's every asshole with a boomcar playing some combination of shouted bad poetry and mercifully-deafening bass (at least I assume they're deaf. It would be a mercy. The levels of distortion and the rattle and buzz of every object not rubber-mounted in the car pretty much destroy any musical value the stuff might have.)
Well, I've heard that stuff, too. And I always think: "Get some Dynamat, dammit!!!" as well.
However, if these individuals thought they were a PART of a real COMMUNITY they might actually CARE about other people. And they might meet someone who knows something about acoustics and vibration and whatnot who can set them up so their car sounds a lot sweeter without buzzing and shaking and distorting all over the place, plus the common courtesy to turn it down at night, at stoplights, etc.
I used to blare my stereo as loud as I could, now I turn it down at stoplights because I realized that I didn't like it when others blared at lights, so I shouldn't either.
I still think a more developed community would help solve a lot of these sorts of antisocial problems...
Besides, what I meant about cool music coming out of a door isn't a loud blare, it's enough to notice from the sidewalk if you were walking by. Listening carefully, you'd say "Hey, that sounds cool, I wonder what it is?" and walk up and ask. In college I could do that all the time, and met a lot of cool people that way.
-cajun
are you kidding, the only reason that your online communities are so accepting is because ultimately everyone is secluded and has their own privacy.....they are only intellectually accepting. There is no physical acceptance in a virtual community and i doubt that a community like that would be willing to be as "free" physically as they are intellectually.
Well, I hope we can find a way around that, or at least teach tolerance to future generations so that people don't have to be physically isolated to be intellectually free with each other. Intellectual freedom breeds physical freedom, methinks. Slow process, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere, right?
Besides, one of the online communities I was a part of in the past (haven't had much contact with it for the past year or so... life changes things sometimes...) I do know a lot of the members of in person, and they are every bit as accepting in the real world as they are on the 'Net. Unfortunately, they are scattered about the country, so it's not like I can just pop down the block and say Hi...
-cajun
Lessee here... Nice bit of work there, wish I had time to order and read the book before posting, but I don't.
;-) and private bathrooms/kitchens and all the comforts of home. Sounds very much unlike a dorm, but it's not the PHYSICAL implementation that I want to be similar.
The "global village" isn't here yet, as another poster has mentioned. And, yes, the author of the book is right in that the "ideals" of the Internet providing us with such global connectivity is really just the same Enlightenment ideas being attributed to new sources.
I for one would like a tighter community. One very much like a university dorm, but with better sound insulation on the walls (VERY important...
It's the SOCIAL one.
Maybe it's just where I live, but I sure don't see anyone leaving a door open with cool music coming out, inviting random passersby to stick their head in and knock and see if anyone wants to chat or something. And I am SURE that if I tried to just walk up to random houses and/or apartments around where I live and knock and try just chatting with people I'd get wierd looks and maybe a visit from the police...
Why are we so interested in cocooning ourselves away from everyone else? The fragmentation it produces is is why we all love our Internet connections so much, it is a SUBSTITUTE for the physical community that is so obviously lacking in the "real world".
Or, at least, that is the typical "geek stereotype" reason, I guess.
We've lost much more than we've gained with rampant consumerism and an ad-driven popular culture. In exchange for boatloads of shiny trinkets and a feeling of "security" behind the gates of our suburbs and the wheels of our Expeditions we've given up just about everything I can define as "community".
If things are different where you live, please describe it. I might want to move there!!!!
What good is prosperity if you can't enjoy it? A more "open" community model would alleviate quite a lot of alienation, lonliness and abject boredom, methinks...
And the cooperation such communities would engender would bring a higher standard of living to everyone involved.
To get rid of the "tragedy of the commons" you need to keep the community tight-knit enough that everybody knows what's going on. This necessarily involves smallish groups, like a few blocks or somesuch, but these block-level groups can work together in larger groups without losing the advantages that the small block group size affords in dealing with keeping common areas in good shape.
I hope to find some sort of community someday in the real world that is as accepting and open as some of the online ones I am a part of...
-cajun
No, I am not making a "spy" joke. A very close friend of mine has a tiny little import/export business of her own to/from some isolated parts of the former Soviet empire. Socks, sweaters, gum, candy that sort of thing. Her boyfriend has been in the business for a few years, and travels back and forth between the US and Russia quite often. Perhaps you could poke around the local Russian immigrant enclaves and find some Russian-branded products and work your way up the distribution network until you find the entrepeneur running the thing. He or she would probably be willing to strike a deal to hand-carry your goods to a trusted courier in-country at the other end, and he/she also knows how to get through customs. Another couple I know, retired from running *the* biggest (legal/non-govt't) import/export business in the early to mid 80's brought back thousands of dollars worth of jeweled boxes and whatnot from Russia without problems. The secret? Put all the clothing, underwear, etc. into one suitcase and all the valuables in the other and make sure they get the "clothes" one first. Helps if there's some lingerie in there, embarrasses the customs guy and they don't want to open the other one...
-cajun
Hey all.
:P You can get away with a lot more mistakes in school than at work, too. Both social AND "work-related". It's nice to learn the ups and downs in a semi-protected environment.
:-) If you are 18 or over and your parents don't claim you as a dependant, you are financially your own person. That should get you at least SOME financial aid. Work for the food service and you get to eat free. Lots of stuff like that available.
This is probably going to be left unmoderated at the bottom of the pile, but I figured it is worth letting fly anyway.
I have a college education, and I consider myself darn lucky that my father thought it best to provide me with it. I'll make that clear: I didn't pay for the education myself. Fortunately, I also found it worth my while to do a co-op (kind of a long internship, stretches a 4-year program into 5) so I would get some experience while I was at this learning thing.
I found college to be one of the best times I've had! At no other point in time will I be so surrounded by such a group of people my age, with the informalities of Dorm Life and the soft landings provided by the School Social Bubble. Sure, it is a microcosm unto itself, and doesn't lend itself too much to comparisons about what it is like in "the real world". That's kind of the point. That whole "walk before you run" thing has merit, even in such things as socializing and dealing with other people. College is great for learning that stuff. If you royally screw up, next year there will be quite a few people who never knew you before and you can effectively try again. Heck, even moving to another Dorm will give you that opportunity!
Yes I'm saying a lot about Dorms here. If you go to school in the "normal" age range, please spend at least a year or two in the dorms. It will most likely be the only time in your life you will ever be able to just walk down the hall, find someone's door open with cool music coming out, knock, walk in and start chatting. Made a lot of friends that way, miss that way of life sometimes, too.
I've been out in the "Real World" now for over 2 years. Jobs are NOT as flexible as classes as far as working a social life around them. Especially when you have a long commute.
As for the technical side of things, well, I figure college classes are more about "learning how to learn" than trying to memorize how to do things. Personally, I learned how to use resources really well, lots of constants, tables, etc, to look up in Engineering. (I've a BSME)
I guess it's time to summarize. Go to college, it's much more than just learning how to make a buck. My Dad wishes he'd spent more time goofing off and taking "fun" classes than just taking classes he could "make a buck" off of. That's partly why he sent me to school. Can't afford it? BS! One of my closest friends in school worked her way through. She had loans, sure, but she worked hard and had a 4.0 GPA last time I talked to her about it. I think she kept it through graduation, not sure. She also partied pretty darn hard!
It's also nice to have that piece of paper called a Diploma if only because a lot of HR departments won't even look at you if you don't have one. Call it bias, but it's there, and you'll get a lot more out of college than just that piece of paper.
*sigh* It is true that college is not for everyone, but I'd say give it a try. If you don't like it, go to work for a few years and try it again.
Sorry, the Football contains no big red button.
It contains codewords, ciphers and/or other text messages that the Prez tells the guys who DO have the buttons that it is time for THEM to open THEIR safes and pull out THEIR codes and turn their keys, telling the computers to tell the missles to launch...
No single button, a chain of command with people in it.
That said, mechanisms and people are both fallible.
I for one hope we never have to test just how fallible they are, one way or another it would be a VERY BAD DAY.
-cajun
Although offtopic, I thought I'd point something out here.
:-)
This was a mis-quotation of Khruschev. This site:"We Will Bury You" tells a bit about the incident. I quote here a small portion:
"Living in a world strewn with the wreckage of the Soviet empire, it is hard for most people to realize that there was a time when the Soviet economy, far from being a byword for the failure of socialism, was one of the wonders of the world--that when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the U.N. podium and declared, "We will bury you," it was an economic rather than a military boast. It is therefore a shock to browse through, say, issues of Foreign Affairs from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s and discover that at least one article a year dealt with the implications of growing Soviet industrial might."
Now, Khrushcev didn't actually say "We will bury you". What he said has been subsequently translated as "We will be at your burial", meaning roughly that communism would outlive capitalism. And he said it in Poland in 1956, not at the United Nations in 1959. The shoe pounding incident was entirely unrelated to the misquote in question, but like the misquote was eagerly interpreted as a gesture of aggression.
Interesting bit of Cold War trivia, that!
-cajun
You're still talking about slanted, biased media disinformation.
e ver we will supplant the "spam-like news digests by profit-motivated media outlets" that you describe, thereby informing the poorly informed.
I'm not.
If we established a regularly scheduled TV show/radio show/newspaper insert/(insert media item here) that gave true equal time to every registered entrant, AND TOLD PEOPLE ABOUT IT, I think they would appreciate a single-source for their info.
I'm not talking "news stories" here, I'm talking "position stories" by the parties themselves. In the case of TV and radio, each registered candidate gets up at a podium in front of a blue screen (where on TV their party name/logo/whatever will show) and reads a prepared speech. No fancy editing, no fancy pictures, no special effects, just a person talking to the camera/microphone. In the newspapers or other text-based media the prepared speech would be printed verbatim.
No slant, no bias, no spin other than what the party/candidate puts in themselves. If a candidate wants to spend his or her five minutes spouting off at the others, fine, he or she will look silly.
The important thing is that, despite all the other paid ads, soundbites, etc. out there people will know that these "equal access hours" will be the place to get all the info in one go. If you miss it, pick up the newspaper or hit the library on the way home. Simple, really, and difficult to abuse since only registered entrants my participate, etc.
I think it would even be okay to have these position papers tacked up in the voting areas, so that people can scan the info one last time before they go in and pull a lever. Since they aren't paid ads and everyone on the ballot has the same amount of space, it should be fine.
Now, I'm a bit cynical, too, in that I don't want "gibbering idiots" determining how I live my life, but I feel very strongly that everyone who is going to be affected by the decision get a chance to influence it.
By making a place where everyone on the ballot gets equal space/time/print/volume/surroundings/editing/what
Maybe if people are more informed the "representative" bit will come back...
-cajun
Whoa, there partner!
:-)
/. are used to talking about. I'm talking printing presses, copy machines, bulletin boards (the cork kind! :-), etc. If you make a "standard location" where everyone running drops off an info packet, and make it widely known that the info is available there, people will be more likely to use it. Wouldn't take much more to set up local 800 numbers with "dial a party" info databases. And of course throw it all on the Net, too, but again make a centralized, recognized Politics Site where ALL parties running place their stuff.
Take a step back and read what you posted. Take a think. A long think.
You say that you don't want a more democratic government because the MEDIA tells everyone what to do? All of your arguments take aim at how the information is fed to the people, and you feel that to make things work better we should reduce the number of people eligible to vote. (Well, you didn't say that exactly but it seems implied.)
What we need to do is to reform the way campaign and issue information is disseminated to the public, so that the public IS informed and CAN make intelligent decisions.
The much-maligned Joe Sixpack may not be a rocket scientist, but he isn't stupid, either.
I'd like to see:
*Party platforms, including their positions on all issues, posted in public places (libraries/schools/etc.) and indexed in such a way that anyone can get to the issues that interest them. Cross-reference them as well so that related issues are tied together.
*Put a "Politics" section in the major newspapers that will print up a platform proposal by ANYBODY who registers to run for a political position. Nobody gets excluded, set a uniform length, etc. That way, no matter how many high-priced full-page ads the major candidates put out everyone who's running has a spot in the "Politics" section and people will gradually get used to the idea that this section is a better place to get info than PAID ADS.
Of course, this brings up the issue of who pays for all this, but perhaps there could be an "advertizing tax" or somesuch whereby the candidates that buy full-page ads, etc. subsidize the printing costs for the little guys. Or something. I'm no economist!
*TV and Radio ads need some serious reform. We almost never see ads for anyone other than the Big Two. In fact, other than Perot, I can't remember a single political ad (for pres, anyway) that had anyone other than the Big Two in them. Maybe the Public Access channels should have a "Politics" show or somesuch along the lines of the position papers in the Libraries, newspapers, etc.? If soundbites/viewbites rule the minds of the populace, then we need to figure out a way that everyone running gets heard. If every party got 5 minutes for a "position speech" in a special "Politics Hour" or somesuch, with periodic reminders that "all this and more at your local library/school/wherever available to copy and take home to peruse at your leisure". Again, people will gradually learn that they get better information from these sources than from PAID ADS.
I agree that technology can help here, but it is a lot lower tech than people on
If you don't like uneducated voters "polluting the system", EDUCATE THEM, don't cut them out of the loop entirely!
Whew... Back to my usual mostly lurking here...
-cajun
Hey all,
:-) The LN2 is fed through the exchanger to a pressure regulator to the "engine" where it is allowed to expand and propel the vehicle. No compressor, cryogenics, etc. onboard at all, just the LN2 in a vacuum dewar, the exchanger/evaporator and the "engine". IT is an odd sort of heat engine, but it is still a heat engine in that it uses the "low grade" ambient heat in the air passing across the heat exchanger to power the phase change from liquid to gas. THe hotter it is out, the better it runs, per regular heat engine theory. Probably also want to try and keep the engine block warm, too, to help in the expansion there. Nifty use of ambient heat, for sure!
The LN2 car is an interesting one. Last time I read about it, I liked the idea. You make a vacuum-insulated tank and cap it at only a few psi, just enough to keep it from going vacuum on you on transition from hot day to cold day. The LN2 boils off slowly over a period of days to weeks, it is a "use it or lose it" scenario.
The breakthrough is in the heat-exchanger: it is a "frost-resistant" device in that it still works pretty well when iced over, unlike most air conditioner evaporators...
Sure it takes a fair amount of energy to make the LN2, but it generates other liquid gases during production that can be sold to recoup some of the energy cost.
Transport in bulk works better than the smaller tanks in that the much higher liquid volume makes it resist temp change a bit better. If it scales up, the price for the LN2 will come down. It isn't too bad right now, though, 'cause lots of industries use it.
Pretty safe in a crash, too. The tank will be located similarly to a regular gas tank or a LPG tank on a vehicle: OUTSIDE the passenger compartment. Current vehicle regulations require this, as well as venting of the tank enclosure space to the atmosphere. There would likely be a "popoff valve" similar to those used in LPG cars in case of excess pressure build up (clogged vent or whatever). One of the "cool" things about it would be that in a crash it is very likely to make the OTHER presumably ICE-powered car cool off, thus greatly limiting the chance of a fire from the gasoline. You'd have a nifty big cloud form, but the LN2 would boil off pretty darn quick. Might get frostbite if you grabbed the twisted metal around where the tank was, but it is otherwise unlikely to harm you.
If I can get to the URL I'll read more about it...
-cajun
Hmm. Perhaps someone should develop an "anonymous tip" model for companies to use that allows "double blind" notification of potential problems. Along with training to attempt to minimize abuse of the system, this could help the small-time whistleblower keep from getting fired.
Currently, though IANAL, IIRC there are laws already on the books that make it illegal to fire someone for being a whistleblower. There are certainly some laws regarding OSHA standards, according the the training I just recieved. Unfortunately, this does nothing to help the guy who, despite successfully suing to get his job back, now has to work in a negative environment, as will often happen in those companies that have enough to hide to want to fire whistleblowers.
Heck, I've been warned not to spread around our OSHA violations at work...
-cajun
Good point. Hmm, wonder if it would be possible to make a hydrogen molecule with one hydrogen atom and one anti-hydrogen atom... Talk about an unstable molecule!!!! BTW, nice to see a first post that is actually informative... :-)
-cajun
Lead free solder is available, and is not unproven. Kester Solder sells a number of formulations and fluxes to make them work. They do need a hotter soldering iron temperature, which may lead to issues with chips/components/boards getting too hot, but this is surmountable. The sticking point right now is that "Everyone still uses lead solder" and "but it's harder to use" etc. etc. Basically whining and corporate inertia. If I had any sort of control at all over how we do stuff here, I'd spec lead-free solder for everything we make. We do use it for some apps, specifically higher temperature apps, but the bulk is still lead-based 'cause it doesn't make the ladies that hand-solder everything we make (except for the SMT stuff) complain... BTW, all solder used for plumbing with copper pipes has been lead free for quite a few years. 'Course, soldering with a blowtorch isn't as finicky as a tiny soldering iron... :-)
-cajun
Check this out:
National Electric Drag Racing Association
For pictures of a bunch of EV's see:
Electric Vehicle Discussion List Photo Album
For EV's for sale see:
EV Tradin' Post
-cajun
Hello, Slashdot.
:-P
:-)
I've been interested in alternative fuels and electric vehicles for many years, due mainly to my hobby of working on older very fuel-inefficient vehicles. As an enthusiast, I want to have my cake and eat it too. The "magic bullet" solution isn't here quite yet for sale at the dealership but that doesn't mean you can't do a homegrown effort.
I'm a member of the Electric Vehicles Mailing List see: EVDL Instructions to join or to browse the archives.
A group of us are trying to design an electric car along the "Open Source" idea, basically a set of plans from which anyone can build or base a design of their own on for an electric car.
Main problem at this point is too many people to please.
An electric vehicle conversion can be made to go 120 miles on a charge using ordinary golf-cart style lead-acid batteries, top speed around 75mph or more and that is a mixed city/highway range, not an optimal low-speed range. See it here: Red Beastie
Someone mentioned methanol pumps in Brazil. Sorry, they use Ethanol there as a highly gov't subsidized alternative fuel made from sugar crops there. Ethanol has been shown to use more energy in its creation than you can get back from it, so it's not a large-scale viable fuel for environmental reasons.
Methanol, on the other hand, can be made from virtually any biomass source, but the preferred gasification/reformation method "likes" woody, dry herbacious feedstock like wood scrap and the much-touted industrial hemp.
Some approximate figures:
One can get 10-20 dry tons of biomass per acre of land using prairie grass, trees and/or industrial hemp.
From 1 dry ton of biomass, 100-150 gallons of Methanol can be produced.
That's roughly 1,000-3,000 gallons of methanol per acre per growing season. At 10mpg that's 25,000 miles on 2.5 acres average.
Fuel cells will get roughly 100-150mpg equivalent, so that's 250,000 miles per 2.5 acres average.
Or, a quarter acre can drive you 25,000 miles per year. You can provide most of the fuel you need to drive every year by mowing your lawn!
For electric cars using batteries, the concern everyone seems to have is "Where do I charge?"
You can "plug in" anywhere you can get electricity and permission to use it. The only time you need a special plug or custom plug is when you buy the OEM EV's with their proprietary big-$$$ inductive chargers or when you want to "fast charge" to fill your pack in an hour or so.
I could drive an electric vehicle if I had a garage or a dedicated parking space where I could erect a plug. That's the current drawback: only homeowners or those who have landlords/condo associations that will let them plug in can really have them. Fits well, though, because such people generally have 2 cars anyway one of which usually shuttles back and forth to work with only one person inside most of the time. Keep the gas minivan for hauling the fam around, use an electric for the commute to work.
Ford projects methanol hybrids to be available in 2003 or so. This is in line with the current state of the art in fuel cells and on-board reformers. Methanol can be pumped just like gasoline, so infrastructure is a matter of cleaning out a gasoline storage tank, replacing all the O-rings with methanol-tolerant versions, and changing the price and label on the pump.
By the way, the Prius is just a hybrid-electric Echo sedan. The price difference will take 230,000 miles to pay off at $3 a gallon for gasoline.
You can buy CNG trucks from Chevy and Ford, you just have to order it from the factory.
Propane is widely available, and it doesn't cost much to switch. Check the cost of the fuel and your miles-per-year to see if it is viable.
Cheapest solution today for commuting: Used Diesel VW Rabbit and similar vehicles from the mid-80's. Sub-$2,000 cost for the vehicle, 45mpg, cheap fuel at truckstops. New cars? Volkswagon TDI. 45+mpg.
Fuel Cells are coming, and they will rid commuter cars of those pesky Carnot heat engines. Meanwhile, us Enthusiasts (AKA: Gearheads, Engineheads, Petrolheads, GreaseMonkeys, Hotrodders, etc.) can use the methanol in a conventional heat engine and take advantage of it's very high octane to enjoy very high performance. Remember: Formula 1 engines run on methanol, and turbocharged versions pushed almost 1,000hp out of their tiny engines...
-cajun
"Actually, MS can introduce all the tags they want, and it's up to web developers to NOT USE THEM. If these new tags become heavily utilized on the web, then we have web designers to blame, and not Microsoft. Further, it would actually show that there's a demand for that functionality, and that W3C is moving too slow to be useful."
It goes a little higher than that: These web designers have bosses.
Those bosses have bosses.
You go up far enough and in most companies you end up hitting the ubiquitous "Pointy-Haired Boss" who says something like: "Dammit! I want it to do that new flashy thing I saw in my (insert name of trade magazine written for and by "Pointy-Haired Boss" types) yesterday!"
When faced with this sort of "do it or we'll find someone else to" fiat it's no wonder IE can deadlock the browser market...
-cajun
"For example, make karma invisible to the user. Make scores invisible to those lacking moderator points."
Uhh, no. Problem: Scores are very useful to see when you want to "skim" the comments for what is likely "good stuff" so hiding them isn't cool. Karma, on the other hand, I suppose we could leave that a mystery. Not sure about that one, though. Mine sure hasn't gone up much...
-cajun
Hey, this could be really cool! Re-enable the "Turbo" switch that is still on most available PC cases. "For when you absolutely, positively, must have that spreadsheet crunched in 200milliseconds!" :-) -cajun
Figured I'd post a bit of an extension to the above argument. Recently read a book called "Natural Capitalism" that I heard about here on /. in some older article that I won't bother looking up. (so I'm lazy. :-P)
:-)
:-)
Anyways, what barawn is talking about is pretty much how it is for anything in a capitalist system. Not that the capitalist system is bad, it is just that it relies on using price as the defacto indicator of cost/value.
Unfortunately, current prices do not accurately reflect the "true" cost/value of many things. Space research, or any pure research for that matter, is a prime example.
Put another way, such things are underfunded because everyone is making rational, correct decisions based on the available information (price, some vague promises about possible future benefit most likely not within their lifetimes) for their financial and life situation. Such individualy sane, rational decisions can unfortunately aggregate to insane, irrational results. Like rainforest de-forestation and adding tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Nobody wants to do that, it just happens because there's no tag on that gallon of gas or that banana or whatever that says "This caused X pounds of CO2 to enter the atmosphere, polluted X gallons of water, caused the loss of X cubic yards of topsoil, etc." and even if it was there nobody knows the "price" of such things or the "value" of the natural resources that are being consumed.
Of course, these arguments can logically be extended to include the Open Source movements as well as all these "information wants to be free" things and patent skirmishes et al. If, say, the price tag on a MicroSoft product included the bit about "Crashes in this product will cause you lost revenue." and had a dollar amount, then MicroSoft would rather quickly clean up their code as the public said "it's not worth the price!" or at least the price of said products would go way down...
That said, I have an interesting question: How much is a reliable, easy-to use, fast OS that has tons of good programs available for it worth to the average user? The current price does NOT reflect the "real pure free market price" for such a product because said "real pure free market price" assumes that the user has all the information needed to base his/her/its decision on. I think we can all agree on that one, with the exception of the guru's out there...
I guess I'd just like to see real "truth in advertising" like that ad from that movie that said "Volvo. They're boxy but good." -cajun
Anybody here like the Sandman graphic novel series by Niel Gaiman?
It won the World Fantasy Award at some point, after which the rules for that award were changed to prohibit any future "comic books" from ever winning the award again.
article
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- Decency laws, euthanasia laws and forced self-safety laws ignore the right of self ownership.
- Zoning rules, antitrust, workplace regulations and most taxes or tariffs ignore the right of private property.
These two "rights" are mutually incompatible. "workplace regulations" for example actually help protect "the right of self ownership."
Most, if not all, laws were passed to protect private property from the disposessed. How was that private property gained in the first place? In the case of the US, it was taken from the Native Americans by first the colonists and then the US gov't. In the case of much of Britain the common areas were taken over by the rich and powerful, transforming the poor, free peasants who had the right to work land for their own gain into poor "free" peasants who were forced to work land for the gain of the landowners.
Not a popular view in the US, but worth reading about: http://www.infoshop.org/faq
Man this topic is a hot potato...
Some of y'all can rant about it being Katz just self-aggrandizing, but look at mainstream media. Why is any story POSTed? To be read! Ulterior motives vary, but I think mainly people write these stories because they feel the issue is important enough to publish their opinion on the subject, and they realize that while many will disagree, at least it should stimulate the public discussion that could lead to a good solution to any "problem" with the issue.
In the specific case of the "freedom" on the Internet, we are certainly facing a problem and many attacks from gov'ts and corp's who fear the implications of unrestricted information flow.
Existing "meatspace" laws only come up short because of the current difficulty inherent in enforcing them when the medium used to violate them is as distributed, twisted and mutable as the Internet's vast web of connections. The ultimate control point, of course, would be the major Telcos. They own the wires, fibers, etc, that the Internet's information exchanges travel on. Fortunately, the gov't hasn't decided to attack that point yet, probably because it would still be extraordinarily difficult to efficiently block and trace back "prohibited" packets, especially if they are encrypted.
We educated users of the Internet care about this because we use the 'net almost every day, and have come to rely upon it for much of our information gathering and sharing. It is also an important medium for disseminating ones opinions to a very large possible audience. As such, it is of course an important tool for Free Speech.
It comes back down to the existing laws and the country that spawned them, however. The Internet does have physical components, and the access points to it have physical locations, as do the users. Said physical locations are bound by the laws in that location. In countries where Speech is (mostly) Protected, like here in the US, we can expect that there will be little if any direct control over the "data conduits" and their connections to sites outside of the US. (I'm leaving IP law aside for the moment...) In countries where Speech does not have similar Protection, we can expect that there will at least be a vigorous attempt to control the "data conduits" in a similar fashion to other media. As another poster mentioned, a gov't can do considerable damage before it realises that it's goals are unattainable. However, they will not be resisted overmuch as long as the public that supported the creation of the laws still supports their enforcement. That this is difficult is not an issue to the majority, witness the current War On Drugs in the US...
Corporations are an "enemy" in this issue because they desire to protect their profits. That is their sole function, to create and protect their sources of profit. At least this is the case under current Capitolistic economic systems. If they see a threat to their profits, they will do everything in their power to neutralize that threat. This includes using their economic power to lobby for the passage and/or enforcement of laws against the rest of the public. Whether this is right or wrong is up to the individuals involved to decide, but until there is enough popular support for a change in the current model nothing significant will happen.
Perhaps the best way to ensure the continued expansion of communication and ease of information sharing would be to maximise the number of people who have access to the Internet. If everyone was on the Internet and came to value it as a vital tool for sharing information, opinions, etc. about all topics, including dissenting political ideas, revolutionary ideas, etc. then any attempt to shut off this medium would lead to a huge public outcry against such an attempt.
As it is, we do not have the support of the majority, because the majority do not have Internet access and therefore only have the information about it supplied by the predominant media forms of newspapers, radio, television and schools. And those of us who know realize that such sources are far from being unbiased, especially to those who have to work so hard to make ends meet they don't have time for anything more than the TV news soundbites they catch on the TV during meals and/or the radio soundbites they hear. Until we get the masses online, we will not have their support, and they will continue to base their opinions on the opinions of the popular media.
This is why it is so important to fight "filtering systems" in schools, libraries, and other public access locations, or at least to stimulate vigorous wide-scale public discussion about it, in order to get our point across that maximal access to information is VERY IMPORTANT to allow our children to develop into adults capable of dealing rationally with all sorts of information that they will be exposed to in their lives.
Perhaps an acceptable idea would be to get the schools to use Linux or Unix based operating systems and text-only browsers. Not only would they learn more about how the computers they use operate, but it should satisfy 95% of the parents who object to certain kinds of content on the Internet.
Of course, there are those who beleive that the role of parents and schools is to mold and socialize their kids to want to act the way we want them to, to want the same things we want, to value things the same way we do, etc. rather than teaching them how to decide such things for themselves...
If you want to preserve the access rights for "us techies", you needn't worry. It is relatively easy to get a "codeless technician class" Amateur Radio liscense, and for the motivated the higher class liscenses should be easy as well. Packet radio can and is done, and it is legal. Advances in error-detection and correction will need to be made because of the high amount of noise and the spurious contact quality from time to time. Simple encryption would defeat most attempts to "listen in". Basically a huge wireless LAN. One could also use various "line of sight" connection techniques, including lasers, microwaves, directional antennas, etc. For the truly paranoid, mobile "burst" transmitters. Transmission would be less instantaneous, but for mostly text-based information it could be very useful. Server in a van with a reciever and a transmitter. When the buffer is full, burst transmit. Coded-in callkeys to identify the intended reciever. All sorts of ideas, and all hard to track down. Especially the recievers.
You can be as free as you want to be, but TANSTAAFL...